Since I find myself about to make my 100th post, I thought I'd also take a moment to express various appreciations and to reflect...

Like coreolyn, I am mostly self-taught. Also, I'm the only "technical" person on my development team, which means there aren't a lot of people I can bounce ideas off of. I can talk to my co-workers, of course, but they usually go into *DUMMY MODE* as soon as I start going into specifics.

First off, I'd like to thank the community at large. In the past few months, I've found a community of like minded individuals willing to share their knowledge, expertise, and (most importantly) time for nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing they've helped solve problems, improve skills, educate, and (perhaps most important) made a difference.

Thank you for making the Monastery my favorite waypoint on the Perl Way.

Certain individuals deserve more specific appreciations:

• Vroom certainly deserves the most for creating the Monastery and for being very diligent in continuing to make it a good place to hang out. Somebody buy the man a beer, please.

• Merlyn. Prolific, skilled, and knowledgeable. His personal views on honesty, ethics, and the way things should be can difficult to take at times, but he rarely (never?) prevaricates nor sugarcoats. I've heard some express a certain amount of dismay over this, but one must acknowledge the man's contributions to the Perl community and to the Monastery. Truth, like Comedy, is not always pretty nor easy.

  Also, I want to thank him for maintaining his article archives. I'm continually amazed by the amount of material and frequently humbled by the implementations. (Note that the link is to only one of his archives.)

• tilly, chromatic, jcwren, ybiC, kudra, and everyone else listed in Saints in Our Book deserve thanks for their encouragement and for their willingness to go beyond simple answers. Their willingness to share their experiences, guidance, opinions, and knowledge is inspiring and enjoyable.

  Also, Ovid deserves much praise for his CGI programming course.

  Turnstep's home node should be required reading for all new monks.

• PsychoSpunk, coreolyn, Blue, Albannach, mitd, Petruchio, alakaboo, and others have been very helpful in showing what it takes to be a monk seeking enlightenment; their other contributions are also very appreciated.

• Everyone else that I forgot to mention...

I really enjoy the fact that, despite the diversity of background, opinions, and skill sets of the active Monks, the Monastery not only helps you learn Perl, it can (if you're paying attention) help you learn what it means to be a good, professional, and ethical programmer. I've found my code in other languages improve as a direct result of the conversations and kibitzing that goes on.

As far as my challenges to myself this year:

• Complete a couple of potential FAQ's for New Monks that I've been working on.
• Clean up my home node.  Done!
• Post at least one Craft Done...posted as a CUFP.
• Post at least one Review  Done!
• Keep bugging a certain monk to start participating.
• Continue to help where I can and to improve the quality of that help.
• Lose ten pounds. (Oops; sorry. That slipped in.)

--f